Civil Partnerships For All (Or For No One)?

At the end of June 2018 the Supreme Court handed down a judgment saying that heterosexual couples should have the same right as same sex couples to enter into civil partnerships.

Since December 2005 same sex couples have had the right to enter into civil partnerships. In March 2014 they gained the right to enter into same sex marriages. From a legal perspective civil partnerships are no different to marriage.

Civil Partnership Act

The Civil Partnership Act was enacted to allow same sex couples to formalise their relationship, but at the time the government was not willing to take the step to call it marriage, even though it was marriage in all but name. It wasn't felt necessary to open civil partnerships to heterosexual couples as they had the option of marriage if they wanted to formalise their relationship. That argument was swept away once same sex couples could marry, but civil partnerships remained on the statute books.

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court by declaring that the Civil Partnership Act provisions not allowing a civil partnership between heterosexual partners breached their human rights, means that a change to the Act may follow. However, there is no certainty that a law change will come in allowing heterosexual partners to enter into civil partnerships and the more likely outcome is that civil partnerships will be removed as an option for all couples now that marriage is open to all.

Is this potentially a great step forward bringing the law into alignment with modern societal norms, or is it simply a judgment that is good in principle, but will have little relevance to most people in settled relationships?

Unmarried Cohabitees

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